Vikings!

Yeah, i like what Emphyrio proposes, like Tikal tiles as you explore the forest. The edge of the world? oh yeah!! This is where the norse Gods dwell and awaits the unlucky travellers.

Have you read the French (Belgian?) comic book "Thorgal"? Very fantasy: a human looking Alien is accepted as one of their own by a clan. Grown up, he has to try and understand his origins and why the hell the Gods keep getting him involved in their own problems. Very interesting storyline

soul

Sorry. I'm too lazy to read all the others but I have somethings you may want to hear.

1. That's a cool idea. Vikings truely rock.

2. You may wan't to romantisize the idea a bit like with pirates. For example, real pirates were not as charming as the ones we love today (o.k. I'll say it. Thank you Disney)

3. Speaking of pirates, there is a board game called "Pirates Cove" which is similar to what you are making. You should try it out, first of all because its rather spiffy, second of all, in order to make sure your game doesn't end up too much like it

I actually don't have any cool ideas except for maybe skills you could give your viking along the ways to improve his sucess
(Sailing, charismatic, berzerkers whatever)

O.K. that's all.

I agree that there needs to be some nice areas of the game where there is some involved player interaction. There could easily be several parts to the game -

- The Sailing/Raiding. Moving your ships around, targetting various sites, exciting combat, choices over where to go - how far it is makes the trip longer, but wealthier sites may be further away, sites that are plundered will take time to get prosperous again (if ever) and sites that get plundered too often may either stay impovershed, or stauncher sites will get beefed up defensive-wise. Also, how good is the Vikings intel? Maybe that monastery that they raided last season is no longer there? Or maybe it was thought holy enough that the Church sent them coffers of gold to build up their defenses

- The Boasting/Epic-Making. This is the Glory side of things. There could be some neat player interaction here - you need to have other Clans to boast to, and you want worthy 'competitors' to gain advantage over. What clans have the best skalds? What clans were busy wheeling and dealing at home while their boys were old pillaging?

- The Politics. Linked in with the Boasting/Epic-Making part of the game. Law was also a big Thing (pun intended...) amongst the Vikings. Also one-on-one duels. There was also a class structure. What kind of problems are brewing at home? What conflicts are there? What is happening with the King? There were very strong social bonds and there is a lot of room for player interaction.

- Religion. Ah the Norse Gods! What Viking game could thnk of being complete without Odin, Thor and Loki! How do the gods affect your clan? How powerful are your Priests? What Gods do you favour the most, and which favour you? Have your sacrifices been worthy or do you come home to find your lands in devestation?

Hmm, I've always liked Vikings, mayhaps I should start working on a game myself, very tempting...

P.S. Ah yes, forgot about Beserkers, gotta have Beserkers running around in their wolf-skin loin-cloths ;)

Sweet! Finally something interesting will happen here!

Very true. A few possibilities, above and beyond raiding each others' ships as you mentioned, could be:

-Have the largest villages be too powerful to raid alone, forcing players to make temporary alliances if they want to reap the rewards there, which could be a) lots of glory and/or b) special action cards that can only be found at these sites.
-Each player could 'own' a Viking Village, each of which has an equipment/skill that can only be purchased at those villages (i.e. berserkers, weapons, ship upgrades, etc.) Thus, to gain these advantages your loot would have to go to other players. Players could negotiate the cost of these upgrades. Players may even be allowed to trade Vikings/cards for upgrades if it would work within the rules structure.
-The aforementioned action cards could be played on other players to hinder their progress.

A certain level of cooperation would be required to win, but of course you don't want to help others TOO much.

-Jeff

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...
Nestalawe,

I see no reason why you can't work on a viking game. There are hundreds of pirate games out there (and new ones coming out all the time) and very few viking games. I think you have some great ideas.

Vikings as the theme for the next GDS?? Seems like there is enough interest.....

WHile not quite Vikings, someone above mentioned Beowulf, so I thought I'd pass this link along:

Beowulf

Doesn't capture the theme very well (as others here try to do), but it's still a pretty good game for what it is (aside from the hopelessly tiny icons on the board), and could provide some inspiration.

Hello!

I really like the theme, although I have difficulty to envision player interraction other than direct combat. Nevertheless, this is what I came up with:

Each village/town on the board could have a series of loot available, and each time the village is raided, the whole lot is taken. In the following turns, the village is slowly ressuplied (one item each turn).

For example: The city of London has the following loot available: one gold chest, one sheep, one weapon and one jewel. (One token of each color). If a player raid London, he may take all loot available there. In the following turn, when there is no viking ship present in the town, one gold token is added on London, and the later turn, the sheep is added, and so on until the town is fully ressuplied. A player could raid a town which is not fully ressuplied, but would only take the loot tokens present on the city.

Using this mechanism would allow players to prevent a player from achieving a goal by raiding ports containing what he needs, without direct combat.

Different loot could be required to upgrade certain elements (à la Goa) such as: Combat, Sailing, Exploration, Notoriety, etc. It could also be used to achieve certain goals (like building Wonders). Certain towns could have more loot available, but have a greater defense level. Each raid could increase the defense rating of a town by one. You could also devise a mechanism to have imperial fleets patrolling the seas and defending towns (similar to the brigand token of Settlers). Players could also discover special locations through exploration (Stonehendge, etc).

Jeb

I really like the idea of a game about Vikings. Here are couple thoughts off the top of my head, based mostly on just what I've read in this thread...

It's been mentioned that the Vikings weren't all about fighting, they were basically businessmen. Tough, butch businessmen. As such, I feel like the game ought to be about trading (a little economics and/or resource management, goods) with an option to sack or raid available. Obviously, raiding might get you some goods or money or whatever from a town, but it would make dealings with that town tougher afterwards. Probably (a) no more regular trade (or trade at a much less attractive rate), and (b) More difficult to raid in the future as well.

I suppose each player would be a head honcho in a different sect/order/group/gang of Vikings. I don't know if there were different groups of Vikings in real life, but for game purposes it seems to make sense. An alternative would be that one player's team is 'Vikings', while another is [some other historical group that coexisted with Vikings], etc.

So maybe each player is a Viking 'general' (is there a name for that?), trying to gain Noteriety. There's some system of economics in order to facilitate actions which eventually lead to noteriety. One such action would be attacking... either another player, or a neutral (i.e. NPC) party. Perhaps nother way to gain noteriety could be to promote business in a town, like the opposite of raiding and attacking. So a player could either become a famous, well liked Viking, or an infamous, piratous Viking, depending on his approach to the game.

- Seth

In a similar line of thought to sedjtroll (it started this way, at least;) ): each player could have X number of villages, spread over the game board. At set up, players woul choose where to place their villages one at a time: somekind of system would be used to distinguish every village' ownership. This creates a political/raid/trade arena where players can still use the ships' mechanics of x number of vikings leads to this much speed and space for loots/merchandise.

Add to this a few neutral villages ("burn 'em down!! hahaha!"), reputation points, gold or trade value form merchandise/loot in gold and glory value. clan Leaders (the players), would try then to gain victory by different means: X target level of glory/reputation/gold to become the next Clan of clans.

Player can then freely choose to negotiate wih one another, raid a specific player, create alliances...

From there, a central ruling body, the Clan of clans, would be the ruler and decision maker for the glory aspect of the game: having rules and deeds charts from the ancients' traditions: these would promote certain decisions by players as to what to do to gain influence by the Clan of clans.

soul

I think he meant Viking Fury

It DOES look like viking fury, a lot!

soul

Okay, how many of us have started Viking games in the last day or two? Be honest!

I did not start a Viking game, maybe in the future. This thread produced really good material...

I'm too busy right now with my main project. Being the designer and doing all the art for the game at the same time makes me VERY busy but i love it! It's a great experience!

:)

soulbeach